Did you know that on almost every day of the year, at least one member of the New York Yankee's all-time roster celebrates a birthday? The posts of the Pinstripe Birthday Blog celebrate those birthdays and offer personal recollections, career highlights, and trivia questions that will bring back memories and test your knowledge of the storied history of the Bronx Bombers.

July 13 – Happy Birthday Kei Igawa

After the Boston Red Sox failed to make the postseason in 2006, they went out and spent $107 million to secure the services of Japan’s best pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka. Having been out-bid in the “Dice-K” sweepstakes, the Yankees attempted to counter their Eastern Division arch-rival’s coup by spending a total of $46 million to acquire and sign the guy they considered to be the second best pitcher in Japan, Kei Igawa. In 2007, Dice K won 15 regular-season games for Boston and two more in the postseason, to help the Red Sox win their second World Championship of the 21st century. That same season, Igawa got a total of fourteen starts for New York. After his first six, he had a 7.63 ERA and was demoted to Tampa. He returned to the Bronx in late June for seven more starts and finished his first season in pinstripes with a disappointing 2-3 record and a 6.25 ERA.

I watched Igawa pitch several times that year and it was pretty clear that his control was shaky and when he did get his fastball over the plate, opponents tended to hit it a long way. If he really had been the second best pitcher in Japan behind Dice-K, that country has a real shortage of good pitchers.

Igawa started the 2008 season in Scranton/Wilkes Barre and then got called up in May and lost his only start. After one more appearance out of the bullpen the following month, he has spent the balance of his five year Yankee contract in the team’s farm system. It sort of boggles my mind that the Yankees spent a total of $80 million on Igawa and Carl Pavano and got a total of ten wins from the two of them during their nine cumulative seasons in pinstripes. Talk about bad general management decisions, huh?

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